


Corners

by evieeden



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, F/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Minor Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark - Freeform, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Tony Stark, Spider-Man: Homecoming Spoilers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 16:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18055739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evieeden/pseuds/evieeden
Summary: Tony wasn't cut out for mentoring someone to do the right thing, so he didn't know what to do about the mess Peter had got himself into on the ferry. Luckily, or unluckily, for him, Natasha has something to say about it.





	Corners

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone. So I was re-watching Spiderman: Homecoming again and something about the fallout from the ferry scene and where Tony is in his head right then caught my attention and wrote this. I think I just think in my head that if Pepper can't sort Tony out, then Natasha definitely can. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy this. Cheers.

“If you’re nothing without this suit then you shouldn’t have it. Kind of harsh, don’t you think?”

The low, amused voice came from behind him as he slid back into the car after dropping off Peter at his aunt’s. Tony stiffened and then turned slowly, not even bothering to ask how she knew where. Internally, he cursed himself for his inattentiveness. It was mentioning his father that did it. That particular subject always brought out the morbidity in him.

Natasha sat next him. Dark-haired and flashily dressed in a way that brought back his memories of her Natalie-Rushman days, she wore a pair of sunglasses to hide her eyes. He guessed as far as disguises went it was pretty decent.

Then her words registered.

“Are you spying on me?”

She threw back her head and laughed, a deep throaty thing designed to draw attention.

“Oh, you’re just too funny,” she beamed at him. Latching onto his arm, he winced as he could feel her nails dig into his skin. “Let’s go home, honey.”

She looked pointedly at the steering wheel and he started the engine, casting a glance around as he did and spotting a tell-tale glint from a camera lens. Right. That explained the act.

As soon as he had pulled away and lost the paparazzi in the traffic, they both dropped the act.

“Of course, I’m spying on you.” Natasha began shedding the disguise – coat, sunglasses, wig – and threw it all on the back seat. “Technically, you’re my enemy. I need to know what you’re up to.”

The temptation to head for the nearest bar was strong. “Technically?”

She paused and looked at him, her smile almost patronising. “Well, we’ve never really been enemies, have we?

“We’ve never really been friends either,” he shot back at her, the tiny, mean part of him relishing the way her smile slid from her face.

“Tony…”

“Don’t.”

He pulled onto the main highway upstate, relishing the chance to escape the rat race and just go back somewhere where he was useful, instead of floundering wildly about, attempting to keep 15-year-olds from killing themselves and everyone around them.

“Just tell me what you’re here for.”

She stared at him and then nodded shortly. “I’m just here to make sure you’re alright.”

Tony scoffed at her. “Did your boyfriend send you all the way from Wakanda for that?”

She blinked. “I don’t have a boyfriend in Wakanda.”

“Really?” He was disbelieving. “I mean, at first I thought you and Barton…but that was before I knew he had a wife… but then you and Cap seemed awfully close at one point…”

Her laugh that time was genuine.

“Yeah. I thought that too. So really that only left Barnes.”

She stopped laughing and he couldn’t help but dig it in further.

“Two little, Soviet assassins together…not very happily ever after is it? How is the Winter Soldier?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t trust the glint in her eye. “How’s Pepper?”

Maybe they really were that close. Only someone you trusted could cut that deeply.

Tony suddenly felt very tired. “What do you want?”

Natasha turned to face him. “I told you, I’m here to make sure you’re okay.”

“Right.”

The main highway sloped down onto a quieter road and Tony finally felt like he could breathe.

“I’m doing good. I’ve sold the tower, the compound’s been renovated. My work with the government’s going well,” he rattled off.

“And the kid?” she asked.

Tony frowned. “What about the kid?”

Natasha lay a hand on his arm. “Don’t you think you were a little harsh on him? Telling him you’re done? Taking away the suit?”

He didn’t know why he bothered. “I swear I did a sweep for bad guys before I even had that conversation with him. How were you close enough to hear that?”

“He looks up to you,” she ignored his question. “You’re his hero and his mentor and he wants to be just like you. You shouldn’t give up on him.”

“I’m not the one who gave up on other people and had them actively run away from him.”

If looks could kill… “So we were just supposed to hand over our freedom, let them lock us up without trial?”

“Well, strangely enough, I thought _we_ were on the same side so would be locking up the bad guys together,” he shot back. He hadn’t realised just how much her betrayal still stung.

She shifted next to him. “And the rest of our team are the ‘bad guys’ now?”

“You can’t tell me that Barnes is a good guy. Not after what he did.”

“You’ve killed people’s parents too, Tony. So have I. We don’t get to pretend that we’re better than anyone else.”

He sniffed derisively. See, this was why he hated talking to Natasha. She knew him, knew all the worst parts of him. She probably knew those more that even Pepper did, given that she’d seen so many of them first hand.

But just because he knew that didn’t mean that he didn’t hate the way she could tie him in knots. Mess with his brain.

Force him to look truths he didn’t want to admit right in the eye.

He had regrets over the past, but he had anger too, and he didn’t know which of those was stronger right now. What was the word that Fury had used all those years ago? _Compromised_. Right. He was compromised; probably had been from the start.

Being blown up and kidnapped had been the best thing for him the way he had been going. But it sure as hell had fucked him up. Or maybe his dad had managed that all by himself. Well, his dad and his unquenchable obsession with Cap.

The silence grew as he continued to drive around, not bothering to really pay attention to where he was going.

Natasha finally broke it. “How have you been, Tony? I mean _really_ , not whatever that was earlier.”

So they were going for honesty then. He couldn’t say he didn’t expect it from her. He heaved a weary sigh, running his hand over his face. He suddenly felt very heavy, like he could sleep for about a hundred years.

“ _Really_ really?” he checked.

Her silence encouraged him.

“I’m up to my ass in paperwork trying to get everything sorted at the compound; Rhodey’s getting used to not being able to walk without support unless I can find a way to fix his spine; Ross is calling practically every day wanting us to hunt you all down, as if we could find you all unless you wanted us to – case in point here.” He gestured towards her. “Pepper’s in California still trying to sort out the company and dealing with her… situation… and I really don’t know what I can say to her that’ll make it all right; and the kid’s now lying to Happy and going off the rails trying to be a big hero and I’m just…” He finally paused, unable to describe it all.

At some point during his rant, Natasha had put her hand on his knee and she squeezed it now reassuringly.

“The kid’ll be all right, Tony. He’s just trying to be like you.”

Tony sighed again. He knew she meant to be reassuring, but unusually for Natasha, she was missing the mark somewhat. “That’s not… God, I screwed up so much thinking I could solve everything. You should know, you were there for half of it.”

He took his eyes off the road to look at her and found her staring wistfully into space; she looked almost fond of the memory of the disaster he had been after getting the arc reactor. He shook his head.

“I don’t want that for him,” he continued. “I mean, just look at today…”

“You mean today when things went wrong for him and you were there to help him?” she interrupted.

“What if I hadn’t been? What then? Huh?!” he demanded.

This time it was Natasha who sighed. “Then you would have been there to help pick him afterwards. That’s what you do for people you care about, Tony.”

“And I do such a good job of it.”

“You were there,” she cut off his pity party. “Sometimes that’s more important than what you’re there for. And sure,” she added quickly when she sensed he was about to protest again, “you were there to tell him that he was an idiot, but you _were_ there. That means something. Having someone care, someone in your corner. More than you know.”

He almost asked, but Natasha would have shared if she wanted him to know what she was referring to specifically. And he got it. He got it. The woman sat next to him was one of the people who had been there for him after all, no matter how mean she sometimes got about it.

Silence fell between them once more and after a while, Natasha squeezed his knee once more and then pulled away, retrieving her disguise from the back car seat and replacing her dark wig and bright jacket with easy, practiced gestures and tucking her sunglasses inside a hidden pocket.

“If you drive north for about another five miles, there’s a hotel on the left. You can drop me off there.”

He followed her directions and pulled into the dark parking lot of the hotel. He hadn’t realised it had gotten so late or realised how long they had been driving for. This really was out in the wilderness.

Well… relatively speaking.

Tony was surprised when Natasha didn’t immediately get out of the car.

“Look,” she started, “just let someone be there for you too; don’t try and do this alone. You’ve got people in your corner, Tony.”

Natasha leaned in and kissed him gently, coaxing him into responding. It was a small comfort, but a welcome one. She pulled away slightly, still close enough that he could feel her breath on his lips.

“Call Pepper,” she said gently. “She needs you in her corner, just as much as you need her.”

She slipped out of the car as easily as she had slipped into it and he was sat staring, his mind racing.

Eventually he got himself into gear enough to re-start the car and steer himself onto the road that would take him back to New York. As he turned the car around, he thought he caught a glimpse of Natasha heading around the back of the hotel with a taller, broader figure, but when he blinked, they were gone.

Shaking his head, he tapped into his contacts on the car’s display. “FRIDAY, call Pepper.”

Let it never be said that he didn’t know how to follow advice. Or that he wasn’t about to look a gift-excuse in the mouth.

....................................................

A few weeks later, after the whole commotion with the kid had died down and Pepper had inexplicably accepted his rather-public proposal, he received a letter in the post.

Opening it, he found a single photo, taken the night of the party after they had retrieved Loki’s staff from Sokovia, before the whole mess with Ultron had split them up for the first time. They were all laughing at something; he didn’t know what, but he guessed it didn’t matter. What struck him was how happy they were, how close they all looked, how united they had all felt in that moment.

His team.

Swallowing hard, he flipped the photo over to find Natasha’s familiar handwriting.

_Congratulations on the engagement, Tony._

_And remember, no matter what happens, we’re all still in your corner._

_Call whenever you need us there. Whenever._


End file.
